The rights to Taylor Swift's first six albums were resold – without her knowledge. So she wants to defend herself against it.
Taylor Swift (30, "Folklore") was again deprived of the opportunity to get the rights to her music back. As the pop star announced on Twitter, the investment firm Shamrock Holdings has bought the so-called master tapes of their first six albums from a holding company owned by the music manager Scooter Braun (39) – for the second time without their knowledge and without their having a say. That's why she's re-recording the albums.
In the long Twitter post Swift writes that Shamrock Holdings approached them to inform them that they had acquired "100 percent of my music, videos and album art" from Scooter Braun. During the communication with the holding company, she found out that Braun would continue to benefit from her music. At first Swift had hoped to be able to work with Shamrock, but Braun's involvement was a "failure" for them.
That is the background of the dispute
Taylor Swift has been at odds with Scooter Braun for a long time. In mid-2019, he had taken over Swift's ex-label Big Machine Label Group for 300 million dollars (about 270 million euros) and thus secured the rights to the master recordings of their songs, which were once under contract there. In a Tumblr post at the time, Swift wrote that she was "sad and disgusted" that her songs now belonged to a man whom she accuses of years of repressing them by allegedly incessant bullying. "This is my worst scenario," explained Swift.
Since then, Swift writes in her post, she has actively tried to buy back her rights. However, Braun's side would have requested that the 30-year-old sign a confidentiality agreement before the negotiations, which included that she would never say anything negative about Scooter Braun again. "My lawyers say this is absolutely not common," said Swift. The master tapes were not for sale for her.
She records her music again
In August 2019, Swift had already announced in a TV interview that she was planning to re-record her first albums in order to be master of her own music again. A plan that she is already putting into practice: "I recently started to re-record my older music," the musician lets her fans know. This process is "exciting and creatively fulfilling".
In a letter to Shamrock Holdings, which Swift attached to her Twitter post, she asked investors for their understanding. She knows that that diminishes the value of the old master tapes, but that this is the only way for her to "be proud again when I hear the songs from my first six albums and give my fans the opportunity to hear these albums, without feeling guilty that Scooter Braun is benefiting ".